“There was nothing unintentional about EPA’s actions with regard to breaching the mine. They fully intended to dig out the plug and breach it.”

U.S. Rep. Rob Bishop, chairman of the House Natural Resources Committee.

Bishop didn’t mince words during yesterday’s hearing with Interior Secretary Sally Jewell when he accused the EPA of deliberately breaching the mine with full knowledge of what would happen.

The Utah Republican’s committee has been investigating the spill, specifically the Interior Department’s alleged inquiry into the disaster, so his words bear merit.

The statement serves as a harbinger for what Colorado can expect when it comes time for Congress to fund the Superfund invasion of San Juan County — not a lot of support.

This doesn’t exactly break our hearts, as we’ve opposed Superfund status since before the EPA made it necessary by their actions back in August.

However, the EPA should be forced to continue conducting water treatment at Ground Zero of their ineptness, the Gold King Mine, when Superfund is ultimately delayed. We believe that is the responsibility of Congress to make sure that treatment is funded.

It’s one thing to withhold funding for the entire Superfund program because the cleanups take decades to conduct with no completion dates in sight, but if this mess was deliberately caused as Bishop states, then it is the federal government’s responsibility to continue water treatment until the EPA gets its act together.